Moderna Museet, Stockholm - A notebook page showing a watercolor version of one of Hilma af Klint’s Paintings for the Temple, circa 1914–1915; from Christine Burgin’s Hilma af Klint: Notes and Methods

Born in 1862 to a prominent Swedish family (her great-grandfather had been ennobled for services as a naval officer), Hilma af Klint was a skilled painter of portraits and landscapes who in the first decades of the twentieth century began making hundreds of strange pictures articulating the fluid relations between spirit and matter. Many have no basis in the visible world, and their early dates—in some cases years before such benchmark abstract paintings

Af Klint was one of many artists (including Kandinsky and Malevich) drawn to the esoteric philosophies that flourished in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—Spiritualism, Theosophy, Anthroposophy, and the like. But af Klint’s engagement went deeper than most, and she was tenacious in her pursuit of personal spiritual contact. Her greatest work, the series of 193 Paintings for the Temple, was made by channeling spirit-masters who she claimed moved her hand and planted images in her mind. She spent the rest of her life mulling over what they gave her.

When af Klint died in 1944, she left more than 1,200 paintings, 134 notebooks and sketchbooks, and more than 26,000 manuscript pages to her nephew, a vice-admiral in the Swedish navy. She also gave instructions that her work not be shown for twenty years after her death. She was lucky in her relations: the family not only adhered to the moratorium, they established a foundation to ensure that the paintings and documentation stayed together.

New York, NY (December 19, 2014) – The Film Society of Lincoln Center will present Tell It Like It Is: Black Independents in New York, 1968–1986, a series of key films, starting with William Greaves’s seminal Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One and culminating with Spike Lee’s first feature, the independently produced She’s Gotta Have It which launched a new era of studio filmmaking by black directors. This program includes major works by some of the great filmmakers of this (or any) era in cinema. During this time, activist New York–based black independent filmmakers created an exciting body of work despite lack of support and frequent suppression of minority film production. Programmed by Michelle Materre and Film Society of Lincoln Center Programmer at Large Jake Perlin, co-presented by Creatively Speaking. Tickets will go on sale Thursday, January 15, 2015.

Dennis Lim, the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Director of Programming said, “This is a landmark program that sheds overdue light on an incredibly rich, varied, and undertold chapter of American film history. There are many groundbreaking works here by many singular figures, and we’re proud to present this essential series here at the Film Society.”

In early 1968, William Greaves began shooting in Central Park, and the resulting film, Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One, came to be considered one of the major works of American independent cinema. Later that year, following a staff strike, WNET’s newly created program, Black Journal (with Greaves as Executive Producer) was established “under black editorial control” and as home base for a new generation of filmmakers redefining documentary. (1968 also marked the production of the first Hollywood studio film directed by an African American, Gordon Park’s The Learning Tree.) Shortly thereafter, actor/playwright/screenwriter/novelist Bill Gunn directed the studio-backed Stop, which remains unreleased by Warner Bros. to this day. Gunn, rejected by the industry that had courted him, then directed the independent classic Ganja and Hess (which has been remade by Spike Lee as Da Sweet Blood of Jesus and will open in February),ushering in a new type of horror film, which Ishmael Reed called “what might be the country’s most intellectual and sophisticated horror film.”

Women filmmakers play a prominent role throughout the series, starting with the exclusive one-week theatrical premiere of Losing Ground, directed by the late Kathleen Collins, one of the first feature films written and directed by a black woman. Collins’s first film, The Cruz Brothers and Miss Malloy, also never released theatrically, will screen in newly remastered version created by the filmmaker’s daughter, Nina, along with a video interview with the filmmaker. Nina Collins will be on hand to present her mother’s films on opening night,February 6, along with co-producer/cinematographer Ronald Gray andLosing Ground star Seret Scott.

February 11, Madeline Anderson will present her films, including the classic I Am Somebody, her first documentary, as well as work fromBlack Journal. On February 13 filmmakers Christine Choy, Susan Robeson, and Camille Billops will discuss their work screened in the Women’s Work Program, a selection of films bringing to light the remarkable contributions of female storytellers and their image-making prowess. Trailblazer Jessie Maple, will be in attendance onFebruary 16 to present her films Will and Twice As Nice.

For sale at the Film Society, beginning February 6, in conjunction with this series: Bill Gunn’s Rhinestone Sharecropping (a novel) and Black Picture Show (a play), published by I Reed Press, and How to Become a Union Camerawoman by Jessie Maple, published by LJ Film Productions.

FILMS, DESCRIPTIONS & SCHEDULEScreenings will take place at the Walter Reade Theater (165 West 65th Street)and the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center (144 West 65th Street)

Black Journal ProgramUSA, 1968, digital projection, approx. 70mThe first nationally broadcast black newsmagazine, produced by William Greaves and hosted by Wali Saddiq and Greaves, was home to a who’s who of producers, directors, editors and cinematographers—Madeline Anderson, Kent Garrett, St. Clair Bourne, Charles Hobson, to name only a few—working in a diversity of styles: interviews, skits, commentary, investigative reporting, all with a degree of creativity and experimentation still unrivaled for TV.*Wednesday, February 11, 6:00pm (Q&A with Charles Hobson, Louise Greaves, Kent Garrett, and Madeline Anderson)*Venue: Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 West 65th Street

The Cruz Brothers and Miss MalloyKathleen Collins, USA, 1980, DCP, 50mKathleen Collins’s first film is an adaptation of a series of short stories by Henry H. Roth about three young Puerto Rican men whose lives are watched over by their father’s ghost. New York’s Rockland County serves as the setting for the magic that the urban-born trio encounters when they meet Miss Malloy, an elderly widow who owns a house in need of some tender loving care. Never released theatrically, airing only once on cable TV, and then disappearing from view, the film has been rescued and re-mastered by the filmmaker’s daughter, Nina and Milestone Films. Screening with a video interview with Kathleen Collins. A Milestone Films Release.Friday, February 6, 6:30pm (Introduction by Nina Collins and Ronald K. Gray)*Wednesday, February 11, 3:00pm*Venue: Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 West 65th Street

A Dream is What You Wake Up FromLarry Bullard & Carolyn Johnson, USA, 1978, 16mm, 50mThree black families, observed in their daily lives, their thoughts, values, and aspirations expressed on the soundtrack, and their different approaches to the struggle for survival in contemporary society and their methods of coping with the contradictory stresses placed on the individual in the family environment.

Screening with:Black FacesYoung Filmmakers Foundation, USA, 1970, 16mm, 1mA montage of faces from the Harlem community. Black Faces is courtesy of the Reserve Film and Video Collection of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, preserved with funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.*Thursday, February 19, 5:30pm (Q&A with JT Takagi of Third World Newsreel and Elena Rossi-Snook of New York Public Library for the Performing Arts)*Venue: Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 West 65th Street

An Evening with Jessie MapleA trailblazer and pioneer, Jessie Maple was the first African-American woman to gain entry in New York’s camera operators union, taking the case to court to fight discrimination after she was a member, and writing an invaluable book about her life and experience, How to Become a Union Camerawoman. After directing the film Will, and in need of a venue to premiere it, she and her husband Leroy Patton (also a cinematographer) built and founded the independent cinema 20 West in Harlem.

WillJessie Maple, USA, 1981, 16mm, 70m“I wanted to show the neighborhood—that everything was there, right in the neighborhood,” so says Jessie Maple in describing her feature debut. This is the story of Will, a basketball coach fighting demons, a full picture of dealing with modern urban life—uptown—is revealed. “No matter how low you are you can come back up. That’s what Willis. People can’t count themselves out that quick.” Preserved by New York Women in Film and Television’s Women’s Film Preservation Fund. Print courtesy of Black Film Center/Archive at Indiana University.*Monday, February 16, 6:30pm (Q&A with Jessie Maple)*Venue: Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 West 65th Street

Twice as NiceJessie Maple, USA, 1989, 70mMaple’s second narrative feature uses an intimate story—the relationship of twin college basketball players—to examine the nature of sisterhood, competition, and friendship. As with her documentary work, Maple looks at everyday events and ponders the visible but especially the invisible.*Monday, February 16, 8:45pm (Introductionby Jessie Maple)*Venue: Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 West 65th Street

Ganja and HessBill Gunn, USA, 1973, 35mm, 113mScreened at Cannes in 1973 before being recut against the filmmaker's wishes for its U.S. release, Ganja and Hess was first made available years later in its intended version by independent distributor Pearl Bowser, and, now restored, is considered a classic. Conceived as a vampire tale, Gunn’s film is a formally radical and deeply philosophical inquiry into passion and history. “A film that was ahead of its time in 1973, and quite frankly, is still very much so today… maybe the rest of world will eventually catch up.” – Tambay A. Obenson. With Marlene Clarke, Duane Jones, and music by Sam Waymon. Preserved by the Museum of Modern Art with support from the Film Foundation.Saturday, February 7, 5:00pm (Post-screening discussion with film scholar Pearl Bowser and Sam Waymon)Sunday, February 8, 8:00pm

I Heard It Through the GrapevineDick Fontaine & Pat Hartley, USA,1982, 16mm, 95mJames Baldwin retraces his time in the South during the Civil Rights Movement, reflecting with his trademark brilliance and insight on the passage of 20 years. From Selma and Birmingham, to the battleground beaches of St. Augustine, Florida, with Chinua Achebe, and back north for a visit to Newark with Amiri Baraka.*Thursday, February 12, 4:00 & 9:00pm (Q&A with Pat Hartley and Rich Blint at the 4:00pm show)*Venue: Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 West 65th Street

I Remember HarlemWilliam Miles, USA, 1981, 16mm, 240m“What really made Harlem ‘Harlem’” is what renowned visual historian William Miles, set out to explore when he produced and directed this epic work. Harlem has since become an intersection of cultures, classes, and colors that still maintains a distinctive sense of identity, which Miles lovingly illustrates with his personal connection and commitment to this epicenter of African-American cultural life. We lost this great voice in May 2013 when Miles passed away at the age of 82. Courtesy of the Reserve Film and Video Collection of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, preserved with funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.*Saturday, February 14, 4:00pm*Venue: Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 West 65th Street

In Motion: Amiri Baraka and The New-ArkAmiri BarakaSt. Clair Bourne, USA, 1983, digital projection, 60mThis video portrait, filmed in the days leading up to Amiri Baraka’s appeal of his punitive 90-day sentence for resisting arrest following an argument in his car outside the 8th Street Playhouse movie theater, documents Baraka at his radio show, at home with his wife and children, and performing at readings. It is a delicate vision of a revolutionary who has grown quieter—though never at rest, and as sage as ever.Screening with a performance by Leroi Jones’s Young Spirit House Movers, broadcast on Inside Bedford-Stuyvesant (USA, 1968, digital projection, 10m).

Screening with:The New-ArkAmiri Baraka, USA, 1968,digital projection, 25mProduced by Harlem Audio-Visual and part of the collection of cameraman and producer James E. Hinton at the Harvard Film Archive, this film, previously believed to be lost, depicts the activism, educational programs, and art taking place at the Spirit House community center in Newark, NJ. Digital preservation by Anthology Film Archives. From the James Hinton Collection at the Harvard Film Archives.*Tuesday, February 17, 9:00pm *Venue: Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 West 65th Street

Inside Bedford-Stuyvesant ProgramUSA, 1968-1971, digital projection, approx. 70mProduced by Charles Hobson and aired on WNEW (better known as Channel 5), this weekly show was originally conceived by Robert F. Kennedy’s organization and community boosters to counter images of black neighborhoods as presented in the mainstream news. It is considered the first African American–produced television series in the USA. Hosted by Roxie Roker and Jim Lowry, the program reflected the home of 400,000 people as it transitioned into a new era, featuring open and unscripted dialogues with residents, guest celebrities, and, most notably, a powerful public forum with Harry Belafonte. This program will feature a selection of episodes, presented by Charles Hobson.Sunday, February 8, 3:00pm (Q&A with Charles Hobson)

Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut HeadsSpike Lee, USA, 1983, 16mm, 60mSpike Lee’s NYU Masters program thesis (and the first student feature film ever selected for New Directors/New Films) is a precocious work from a major artist, irrefutable evidence that its maker would go on to become one of the greats.

Screening with:A Place in TimeCharles Lane, USA, 1977, 16mm, 34mCourtesy of the Reserve Film and Video Collection of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, preserved with funding from the National Film Preservation Foundation.*Thursday, February 19, 7:15pm*Venue: Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 West 65th Street

Kent Garrett ProgramTwo docs made for Black Journal, examining the perennial outsider status accorded to those ostensibly on the inside. In Central Harlem, at the height of the Black Power movement, a policeman discusses his role in and out of the uniform, contrasted with the experiences of a colleague in the LAPD. For African-American soldiers in Vietnam, the contradiction of being expected to defend liberties not granted at home is evident. Courtesy of the Reserve Film and Video Collection of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

The Long NightWoodie King, Jr., USA, 1976, 35mm, 85mOne night in the life of a young boy on the street, encountering the denizens of mid-1970s Harlem, while commenting on Vietnam, marital discord, paternal relationships, substance abuse, schooling, and unemployment—in short, the life of an American family.*Thursday, February 12, 6:30pm (Q&A with Woodie King, Jr.)*Venue: Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 West 65th Street

Losing GroundKathleen Collins, USA, 1982, DCP, 86mFinally receiving a long-overdue theatrical run, Losing Ground, one of the first feature films written and directed by a black woman, is a groundbreaking romance exploring women’s sexuality, modern marriage, and the life of artists and scholars. But most of all, it is a great film, one that firmly belongs in the canon of American independent cinema in the 1980s. Sara (Seret Scott) is a philosophy professor and her husband Victor (Bill Gunn) is a painter. With their personal and professional lives at a crossroads, they leave the city for the country, experiencing a reawakening, both together and separately. Also featuring Duane Jones (Night of the Living Dead), the film is honest, funny, and wise. Losing Ground is a testament to the remarkable playwright, professor, and filmmaker Kathleen Collins, and a reminder of the immense talent that was lost when she passed away in 1988 at age 46. A Milestone Films release.Friday, February 6, 1:00pm, 2:45pm, 4:30pm & 8:30pm (Q&A with Nina Collins, Ronald K. Gray, and Seret Scott at 8:30pm show)Saturday, February 7, 3:15pmSunday, February 8, 1:00pm*Monday, February 9, 1:00pm *Tuesday, February 10, 3:30pm*Wednesday, February 11, 1:00pm*Thursday, February 12, 2:00pm *Venue: Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 West 65th Street

Madeline Anderson ProgramMadeline Anderson’s classic documentary I Am Somebody depicts the strength of, and the hardships endured by, a striking group of African-American women in Charleston, South Carolina. The program also features Anderson’s first documentary, as well as work fromBlack Journal. “I was determined to do what I was going to do at any cost. I kept plugging away. Whatever I had to do, I did it,” she said of her career. I Am Somebody is screening courtesy of the Reserve Film and Video Collection of the New York Public Library for Performing Arts, preserved with funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Namibia: Independence Now!Pearl Bowser & Christine Choy, USA, 1985, 16mm, 55mA revolutionary political moment is captured firsthand by two independent women filmmakers shooting inside refugee settlements in Zambia and Angola in 1985. Depicting the significant role of women in this struggle for independence, this film explores the lives of exiled women workers attempting to free their country from illegal exploitation.*Tuesday, February 17, 5:00pm (Q&A with Pearl Bowser, Christine Choy, Al Santana, and JT Takagi)*Venue: Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 West 65th Street

One Last LookCharles Hobson, USA, 1969, digital projection, 60mThis rare film of Steve Carter’s play features many of the leading actors of the era before they went on to achieve international fame, was shown on WABC in New York, and has not been seen since. An emotionally charged drama of family, friends, and former lovers confronting the ghost of the family patriarch at his funeral.Tuesday, February 17, 7:00pm (Q&A with Charles Hobson)

Personal ProblemsBill Gunn, USA, 1980, digital projection, approx. 110m“What happens when a group of unbankable individuals tell their own stories? Actors who have final say over their speaking parts? A director found ‘too difficult’ for Hollywood? Two producers, who, having no experience, had the audacity to organize a production with the amount of money Hollywood spends on catering. Maybe less.” These questions by writer Ishmael Reed lead to the conception of this “meta soap opera,” the story of a Harlem couple, and their friends, made without “the middleman.”Saturday, February 7, 8:00pm (Q&A with Ishmael Reed, Dr. Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor, and Sam Waymon)*Tuesday, February 10, 1:00pm*Venue: Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 West 65th Street

Let the Church Say Amen!St. Clair Bourne, USA, 1973, 16mm, 67m

Voices of the GodsAl Santana, USA, 1985, 16mm, 60mA program on religion and ritual, highlighting two opposite ends of the spectrum in the role of religion in the black community. These modern classics represent two examples of the influential function and position that religious observation occupies as an essential part of African-American culture.*Sunday, February 15, 7:00pm (Q&A with Al Santana)*Tuesday, February 17, 2:00pm*Venue: Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 West 65th Street

She’s Gotta Have ItSpike Lee, USA, 1986, 35mm, 84mThe one that changed the entire landscape of independent film and announced a genuine director-as-superstar, and the defining film of a new generation of American directors. But most significantly, She’s Gotta Have It possesses a confidence, vision, and grandeur of style that is almost as absent from the current independent film scene as the New York City where it takes place, only existing on film, and in memory.*Thursday, February 19, 9:30pm*Venue: Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 West 65th Street

St. Clair Bourne ProgramProducing or directing more than 40 films in a 36-year career, St. Clair Bourne is inarguably the most prolific black documentarian of his time. Bourne authentically documented critical aspects of the black community—its culture, resistance, and activism—images of which would have been lost if not for his chronicling. If comparisons are necessary to understand the significance of Bourne’s work upon the broader landscape of independent film, think D.A. Pennebaker, the Maysles, and Jean Rouch. The films in this program find Bourne documenting black and Irish solidarity, representation in the Brooklyn Museum, and the options granted to high school students who want to attend college. St. Clair Bourne passed away at the age of 64; he would have been 73 this February. Something to Build On is screening courtesy of the Reserve Film and Video Collection of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take OneWilliam Greaves, USA, 1968, 35mm, 75mA docufiction, a narrative experiment, a film about making a film, a crew without a director, a time capsule of New York, a barometer of the culture: process, form, and personality collide in Greaves’s classic, about which no superlatives can be overused and whose influence cannot be overstated.Saturday, February 7, 1:00pm (Q&A with Louise Greaves and special guests)

Video Program – Free Amphitheater Event!A program of video-based works that used television technology to bring public attention to Black American identity, through intervention, documentation, and parody, as in Anthony Ramos’s About Media, in which the artist uses his Portapak camera to turn a news crew’s visit to his home into media critique. Co-programmed by Rebecca Cleman and presented by Rebecca Cleman and Chris Hill.

William Greaves ProgramOne of Greaves’s greatest, From These Roots is a crash-course in Harlem history, told entirely through the use of still images—rarely has so much information been condensed so gracefully. Paired with two early, rare Greaves docs, showing the incredible range of his work. A tribute to the Harlem-born teacher, mentor, and filmmaker, who passed away in August 2014.

Women’s Work ProgramA program from exemplary women filmmakers who were an integral part of the independent film industry during the period covered by this survey. The content of these women’s films are culturally and community-specific, and they tell stories of universal human interest, with social commentary at their core, effectively bringing to light the remarkable contributions of female storytellers and their image-making prowess.

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTERFounded in 1969 to celebrate American and international cinema, the Film Society of Lincoln Center works to recognize established and emerging filmmakers, support important new work, and to enhance the awareness, accessibility, and understanding of the moving image. The Film Society produces the renowned New York Film Festival, a curated selection of the year’s most significant new film work, and presents or collaborates on other annual New York City festivals including Dance on Camera, Film Comment Selects, Human Rights Watch Film Festival, New Directors/New Films, NewFest, New York African Film Festival, New York Asian Film Festival, New York Jewish Film Festival, Open Roads: New Italian Cinema and Rendez-Vous with French Cinema. In addition to publishing the award-winning Film Comment magazine, the Film Society recognizes an artist's unique achievement in film with the prestigious Chaplin Award, whose 2015 recipient is Robert Redford. The Film Society’s state-of-the-art Walter Reade Theater and the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, located at Lincoln Center, provide a home for year-round programs and the New York City film community.

The Film Society receives generous, year-round support from Royal Bank of Canada, Jaeger-LeCoultre, American Airlines, The New York Times, HBO, Stella Artois, The Kobal Collection, Variety, Trump International Hotel and Tower, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts.

For more information, visit www.filmlinc.com, follow @filmlinc on Twitter, and download the FREE Film Society app, now available for iOS (iPhone and iPad) and Android devices.

Happy Holidays from us and ours to you and yours!

One important event this month! Just one! Friday December 19th.

"Live From Steve's Couch" at A Gathering at the Tribes.

A Celebration of "LANGUAGE MATTERS with Bob Holman, A Film by David Grubin." This two-hour documentary will premiere on PBS (Channel 13 in New York, Sun., Jan 25 at 12:30 PM). Bob Holman will discuss endangered languages, and poetry in general, from the perspective of the oral tradition. With special guest Alhaji Papa Susso, Gambian griot, epicist/musician/poet, and keeper of the oral tradition in West Africa. Papa's poems appear in Bob's translations in Bob's newest collection, Sing This One Back to Me (Coffee House Press). Professor Steve Cannon will be on hand, to ensure that everything is on the up and up.Want to watch or be involved? you can stream it LIVE here from 6-8PM

Momenta Art is pleased to present an installation of the work of Kathleen White.

The exhibition, (A) Rake’s Progress, is comprised of the complete polymorphichrome drawings produced by Ms. White outdoors in the summer of 2009. The cycle of pastels on paper, a progression numbering 71 works, were created in remembrance of Ms. White’s late brother Chris White.

Chris’s suicide of 2007 was unreconcilable. Gripped by the shadow of loss, I spent a year studying the colors in my Ludlow Street courtyard —the wild garden was transformed from a derelict garbage heap by Rafael and myself. Knowing also that the garden would soon be lost to the high rents plaguing our city -as “the lost decade”, “the fear decade”, “the greed decade” turned 9 -this physical exploration of color through its endless grinding, its proliferating combinations and intense contact onto the page is at once a stance of grace and defiance against the all the world’s insults.

The “glut” of information which prevails over the pursuit of knowledge and feeling in modern times is of particular distress to Ms. White who often utilizes the phrase, “Get out of the way, hobo!” to refer to the state of our present culture's pervasive, implosive, subtly celebrated, corrosion of empathy. As in the artist’s earlier installations over the past three decades this presentation is in keeping with Ms. White’s practice of creating spaces of reverence, connection and love.

The choice of the pastels was made during a conversation with Mr. Sánchez, “I want this to be an installation of color and sound.” The two artists who have collaborated on numerous acclaimed projects looked to this body of work that has lain dormant for five years. The inclination toward sound comes from a more recent body of work by Ms. White, Sound Texts, which will be represented by the recorded sounds of her instrument of choice during their production: the typewriter.

This “allusion soundtracking” of one group of work with another is an intentional experiment in creating a conversation that might not otherwise exist but through its performance in time and space. The bodies of work are thus considered as characters or beings unto themselves …bodies that are allowed to engage as in a play. The gesture is also intended as a commingling of aspects through pure intention in their simplest forms: “Here …these colors and these sounds.” The Sound Texts will be performed on site by readers on the last day of the show, Sunday August 31.

The show’s title, (A) Rake’s Progress is a multilayered reference to the 1732-33 series of paintings by William Hogarth, (considered to be one of the first storyboards in western art history). The inclusion of an actual rake within the installation refers to the garden where the polymorphichrome drawings were created and thus also serving as a readymade reversal on Hogarth’s tale, signifying the passage of time.

A twist on the rake as not only the individual lost in their desires is also suggested, offering the possibility of the rake as a symbol of the world itself that proceeds in an escalating progression of squandered morals.

(Text written by Rafael Sánchez / edited by Momenta Art)

Solo exhibitions of note by Kathleen White include The Spark Between L and D (Straight Line Studios, 1987); Spirits of Manhattan (Apex Art, 1997), Devotion (Participant Inc, 2004); Palettes (Charlois, Rotterdam, 2010); Her 1993 Hair Suitcase was also included in Familiar Feelings, on the Boston Group, Centro Callego de Arte Contemoranéa, Santiago de Compostela, Spain in 2010.

Kathleen White studied painting at Massachusetts College of Art and Design. She has created sets for Bolshoi Ballet, prepared costumes and participated with NYC performance legends including The Lady Bunny, Flloyd, David Dalrymple and has appeared as a subject in iconic photographs by Nan Goldin, David Armstrong and Linda Simpson. In recent years she has performed and collaborated with Rafael Sánchez on numerous projects including Double-Bill (Art in General, 2010); Somewhat Portable Dolmen (The Street Files, El Museo del Barrio, 2011); alLuPiNiT, the new york city environ mental magazine (Millennium Magazines, MoMA, 2012). The two artists have operated their (set up the) Table Project (break it down) an outdoor bookstand at 579 Hudson Street, NYC since 2004.

Ms. White is a 2014 Pollock-Krasner Grant recipient. Kathleen White (A) Rake’s Progress at Momenta Art marks the artist’s first Solo Exhibition in New York in a decade.

We are announcing Tribes 2.0: Live from Steve's Couch ---as a way to keep the old Tribes spirit alive -- and keep a flow of new energy into the 6th St space. So Gander TV put in a camera and mic in 6th St for us.

The working dynamic here is that since Steve left 3rd St and the open door, every night a performance policy there, there has not been the kind of flow-through energy that sustained him and Tribes for a couple of decades. This is an attempt to find a way to find some new Tribes energy, to enter the digital world, and to have some fun with art.

You don't need to do anything different than what you always do here at Tribes, shoot the shit, heckle and read to the blind guy. The only thing that will be different is it'll be taped for people to watch live! (And there will be future events which we are in process of developing)

We will be setting up times and dates for people who want to participate. If you're interested please send us an email at gatheringofthetribes@gmail.com

BY SARAH FERGUSON | Last week, the Howl! Festival announced that it had selected blind poet and playwright Steve Cannon to be 2014’s poet laureate of the Lower East Side. But the news of this latest feather in Cannon’s cap is bittersweet, because he and his iconic E. Third St. gallery/performance salon, A Gathering of the Tribes, are now on the verge of losing their home.

According to the terms of a legal settlement with his landlord, Lorraine Zhang, both Cannon and Tribes — which has operated out of Cannon’s second-floor apartment since 1991 — have to get out by April 15.

While the 78-year-old Cannon has been battling to stave off eviction for the past three years, news of the finality of this legal agreement came as a shock to many of his supporters.

“It’s the deathknell of a generation. It’s the end of the free spirit of the anarcho-artist of the Lower East Side,” charged Bowery Poetry Club founder Bob Holman, who is on the board of Howl! “The era of the poets crashing on couches has been taken over by Airbnb. Tribes is the last holdout for the gallery/performance crash pad,” Holman opined.

But though he may have lost his legal fight with Zhang, Cannon says he’s not ready to quit holding out just yet. In a letter last month to supporters, Cannon once again pitched the idea of finding a “benevolent donor” to buy back the four-story row house at 285 E. Third St. and help convert it into an artists’ residence.

As the letter notes, Zhang, who purchased the property from Cannon for $950,000, is looking for a buyer — the property is currently listed online at $3.35 million.

“It would be a tragedy to lose our space in spite of such ongoing recognition of the services we provide as an arts incubator on the Lower East Side,” reads the Feb. 19 appeal. “We are one of last places left that nurtures young aspiring artists in all disciplines. Please help, or help pass the word. SAVE TRIBES!”

Among Tribes fans, there’s now talk of a Kickstarter campaign to muster funds, or even a last-ditch occupation to “fill the place with bodies” and so pre-empt the marshals from carrying off the blind professor (along with his myriad books and poetry zines).

“People should contact Steve, go by his house, the door is always open,” urges Holman.

It’s all pretty 11th hour, which is why Cannon concedes he’s simultaneously looking for another apartment in the neighborhood where he might continue some scaled-down version of Tribes.

“I could keep the Web site and publish a few poetry books a year,” he said. “That’s the backup plan. But, really, my hope is to find a way to stay here,” Cannon added, sunk into his living room couch where he has held court for decades.

Zhang declined to comment and referred all questions to her attorney, Steven Gee.

“We intend to enforce the litigation,” Gee told The Villager. “I hope he can relocate his organization. He should have been looking for a long period of time. There’s been plenty of notice.”

Cannon first purchased the crumbling row house back in 1970 for $35,000, using the royalties from his first novel, “Groove Bang and Jive Around.” In 1989, after his failing eyesight forced him to quit teaching at Medgar Evers College, Cannon began informally schooling young poets and writers on the stoop of his building, located just a block away from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, and catty-corner to the old Living Theater.

That stoop workshop became the genesis for Tribes, which morphed into a literary magazine, art gallery, poetry salon, periodic performance venue and perpetual hangout.

Over the years, Tribes has received funding from the New York State Council of the Arts, the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs, the Andy Warhol Foundation and an abundance of private donors. In 2007, Mayor Bloomberg even issued a proclamation honoring Tribes for its role in hosting the East Village’s annual Charlie Parker Festival.

Nevertheless, Cannon fell into debt trying to sustain Tribes and maintain the dilapidated building. (A fire in 1990 had gutted the top floors, and Cannon’s former partner ran off with the insurance money, he claims.) Frustrated with trying to play landlord as a blind man, Cannon sold the building to Zhang in 2004, with an agreement that he be able to continue living there, and holding “non-for-profit” [sic] arts activities in his apartment and the back garden for another 10 years.

Cannon concedes it was a bad move to set a time limit on his and Tribes’ occupancy.

“I was just looking for a good person to run the building,” he explained. “I thought I would let her take over the building and I would just stay here, that’s all.”

The initial agreement allowed him to remain for five years at a rent of $1,000 per month, with the option to renew for another five years at $2,200 per month. So, even if he didn’t get into a court battle with Zhang, legally he only had the right to remain in his apartment until August 31, 2014.

Cannon says he realized he was in trouble in early 2011, when he found out that Zhang had listed the building for sale. Later that year, Zhang moved to evict Cannon, alleging that Cannon had never given proper notice of his intent to renew the second five-year term of his possession agreement, and that Tribes’ late-night gatherings were disturbing other tenants and neighbors.

Zhang also charged that Cannon’s use of his apartment for Tribes was illegal, citing a 2006 violation issued by the Department of Building, which claimed Cannon had converted his apartment into an “office and art gallery.” In fact, according to the city’s zoning laws, it’s legal to have a noncommercial arts space in one’s home under the so-called “home occupation” provision, as long that use does not exceed more than 500 square feet. (Whether the foot traffic or noise generated by Tribes’ at-times boisterous happenings would be permitted under that statute was never determined in court.)

Faced with a trial and the possibility of having to pay Zhang’s legal costs if he lost, Cannon’s attorney recommended he settle the case. Last year, Cannon agreed he and Tribes would leave by May 30, 2014. But the date got whittled back to April 15 after Zhang moved to take Cannon to court again for allegedly exceeding the number of public events allowed under the stipulation.

Zhang and her attorney declined to comment on the specifics of the case.

“The pleadings speak for themselves,” Gee told the Villager.

Indeed, Gee seemed exasperated by the continued uproar over Cannon’s loss of the space.

“He wasn’t supposed to occupy forever,” Gee pointed out. “There was an agreement all along that he would have to move out. Now we’re at the end of the agreement, it’s not fair for Mr. Cannon to say it’s unfair.

“If this case had gone to trial, he would have faced a shorter time. I don’t understand why now it’s such a big affair,” Gee added.

For his part, Cannon says he regrets not taking the case to trial to present his side of the story. He claims that Zhang’s real motive for getting him out is financial. He says Zhang got into hot water after she subdivided the building’s other three floors and began renting out the rooms to students and tourists. In 2009, she was cited by the Department of Buildings for operating a “transient hostel.”

“She put 33 beds in two small apartments,” charged poet Chavissa Woods, who was living in Cannon’s back room at the time. “There were dozens of people moving in and out at all hours, and then the place got infested with bed bugs. Steve was covered in bites, and the neighbors were complaining,” Wood claimed.

Gee declined to comment on any of these allegations.

The Buildings Department slapped Zhang with fines and issued a vacate order for the subdivided floors, leaving Cannon the only rent payer while Zhang worked to restore the other apartments to single-family residences.

City property records show Zhang has accrued substantial debt on the property.

Still, Cannon probably didn’t help his case by allowing young artists to continue to stage exuberant performances on both weeknights and weekends, some of which carried on into the wee hours. One neighbor forwarded a video she shot in 2011 from her back window showing a stripper flogging herself in the backyard while audience members seated on risers in the backyard hooted and hollered. Earlier this month, Cannon confessed he’d just let a group host a “Chinese punk art show” in his living room.

“It was funny as all hell,” he quipped.

In spite of such unorthodoxies, Cannon’s downstairs neighbor told The Villager he didnʼt mind having Cannon and Tribes there.

“I can’t begrudge a blind guy for doing something interesting with his life,” said the resident, who asked not to be named. Similarly, the neighbor who sent the newspaper the video said the noise problems had subsided two years ago, and even offered to write a letter in support of Tribes.

According to supporters, the real problem is that Tribes’ freewheeling existence clashes with the now-gentrified norms of the far East Village.

“Maybe we don’t really have a great legal defense, but what we have is an artistic, and very human defense,” Woods insisted. “Steve is preserving what’s been happening down here since the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, and now people are complaining about that. When people say we’re crazy, well, O.K., but that’s what made this neighborhood so valuable in the first place.”

Photographs Merging Urban Landscapes and Humanity: Fine Art Photography From a Joint Exhibition @ A Gathering of the Tribes

February 8 - 15, 2014

The highly energized yet, at times, startlingly tranquil exhibition of art photography by native New York photographer, Eugene Hyon, organizer and curator at A Gathering of the Tribes on East 3rd Street in Manhattan, was an original artist's view of urbanites and cityscapes not to be missed. The gallery show entitled, Urban Landscape and People: A Symbiosis of Nature and Culture, was a joint showing of recent works by him and Multimedia Artist, Musician and Professor of Fine Arts, Pilar Viviente of the University Miguel Hernandez, Altea, Valencia, Spain. Included in the week-long exhibition were art-evoked poetry recitals by Howard Pflanzer and Helen Peterson. There were also piano improvisations by Prof. Viviente and Richard Clements, enriched by the art.

Artistic and Photographic Styles and Methods of Exhibitors

In her abstract multimedia art works, Viviente strongly projects the message, "Save Nature, Save Culture!"She reveals the symbiotic relationship between the two as primary factors supporting humankind's reliance on both nature and culture in building a healthful, functional and rewarding urban habitat.Starting from stacked constructions of books and CD cases as model city scenes, she creates the familiar dynamics of brightly lit skyscrapers against dense night darkness.With touches of color, she adds sparks of light to the ebony sky, and in some paintings, an over-glaze of translucent brush-strokes of color to lend a Zen-like mystique of reassuring continuity.

In sharp but pleasing contrast to her style, Hyon magnifies, demystifies and dramatizes the organic, pliable balances that underlie the urban environmental core and humanity.By combining three distinctive modes of understanding and focus through his lens─spiritual, poetic and painterly, he artfully guides his viewers to a realization of these balances against the characteristic, somewhat predictable background of city buildings. Yet through his unique lens and vision, nothing is quite predictable or totally definable, and this is what makes his photographs at once arresting and reassuring.

Within his compositions, there is an outward appearance of simplicity, but after a deeper look are layers of subtle complexity that interplay with blatent verity in areas of seemingly opaque mystery.By means of these creative balances and layers of death, destruction, decay, vibrant energy, vitality and extreme beauty, he very astutely and artistically shows us specific aspects of the totality of the active urban lifestyle, death mode, and the stages of existence and experience among them all.We find ourselves absorbed and fascinated by these facets depicted, minus any tendency toward hesitancy or avoidance of viewing even the most destructive or disparaging scenes. We delight in the lighter moments and grieve with or ponder on the darker ones. As a highly accomplished artist, photographer and philosopher, he is able to guide viewers of his works through the complete essence and embodiment of each moment in time, human experience and artistic vision that he captures and conveys.

Eugene Hyon’s Artistic Journey Traced

Hyon’s personal involvement with photography began in the late 1960s, working with his father who was an independent commercial black and white darkroom/studio photographer focusing mainly on fashion, industrial and commercial subjects in New York City.Quoting from him, "There is 'magic' in having a photographic idea and letting it materialize, then doing as many different things with it.I have watched as this transformative process took on a life of its own."

When discussing his art photography, he states, "My work has been described by others as down-to-earth, intimate, mysterious, evocative and visionary.No matter the description, I seek to turn the everyday experience into an extraordinary 'non-ephemeral' moment from the very things that others take for granted."He works with black and white, because it clearly communicates the barest essence of the idiosyncrasies and attributes of our environment and is most suitable for depicting nostalgia.He explains that use of color grasps and concisely conveys instants in the "here and now" modern surroundings.

His art photography has been substantially influenced by the late 19th and early 20th Century photographic works of Eugene Atget, Berenice Abbott, Andre Kertesz, Paul Strand, and Irving Penn.Additional interests of his include living as an integral part of nature and traveling to distant destinations, preferably on the fringes of society.

His works of art photography speak to us on different levels. For example, in his fine art photographs entitled, Beard Street Slip and Beard Street Slip II, the use of sepia toning lends a touch of history and nostalgic warmth to the still, deserted scenes of factory buildings and open structures in Brooklyn built around the 19th Century behind empty boats moored at the weathered dock. What is especially evident is that the subtlety of the sepia tones in both works elevate unpretentious, ordinary and true-to-life scenes to classical levels of composition and proportion, as well as evoke by-gone days. The viewers are transported into an alternate reality that looks back in time without having to leave the present. If one looks closely within the photographs, there are only contemporary boats and cars along the docks and streets.

In the stark reality of the scene depicted in Mannequin on Van Brunt, the damaged yet stylish legs of a discarded mannequin dangle over the edge of a large industrial garbage bin. On one level, these legs, though mud or blood-stained and grotesque in their embodiment of a life roughly lost, hint at a previous lifestyle of posed elegance and beauty.Since the torso, head and arms are not visible, this former figure and existence may compel the viewer to imagine horrors underneath the pile of refuse. On a second level, the whole picture takes on a completely surreal vision with half a woman's figure left dangling off the side of the boat. The third level deals with the actual context, which is the collection of damaged commercial artifacts inflicted by Hurricane Sandy.

In Sunken Taxis, a large fleet of yellow city cabs lies dormant and half-submerged in a flooded parking lot. Their yellow exteriors are offset by the dark murkiness of the rising water engulfing them. With a wide-angle lens, the diamond-like geometry of the grouping of taxis is exaggerated almost to the point of saying that even in state of being engulfed during a super storm like Hurricane Sandy, order somehow survives disruption and chaos. This makes one think that there still might be hope for society and culture in the face of ever more destructive and uncontrollable floods of the urban landscape created by Global Warming.

In Cooling Off On Milton Street, a young man and woman in swimsuits enjoy the cool, forceful spray of water from an opened fire hydrant on a hot day in a city neighborhood. Water, which is a theme that runs throughout the entire exhibition, is seen here in it's benevolent and most controlled form, completely in the service of humanity for pleasure. In the background, the orange and white cylindrical warning barriers surrounding a parked heavy construction vehicle typify the constant mix of different residential and commercial/industrial environments, accessories and attitudes in city environments. The human spirit, culture and social interaction are a reflection of the natural world, even if that natural world manifests itself in an urban environment. Humanity shapes itself around the urban landscape as much as the urban landscape shapes humanity.

Greenpoint Welcome shows the large, nearly street-to-rooftop sign on the side of an urban building. Of prominence are the expansive block letters "BK" for "Brooklyn."They are a curiosity, because of the difficulty in determining whether the ghoulish graffiti lettering was the original work of the artist or added by passersby afterward, as well as strangely reminiscent of European political propaganda posters of the 1930s.The three figures rushing off with a baby-in-stroller down the sidewalk bring a sense of normalcy to the overall scene.

In the art photography displayed in this exhibition, Hyon has definitely transformed ordinary objects, scenes and experiences into bigger than life, non-ephemeraltime segments.With his choice of subject matter that is often overlooked or taken for granted by others, he artfully applies his unique spiritual, poetic and painterly perspectives to focus his lens.The result is a visionary's diversified and complex, yet direct and concisely dynamic art photography.The intimate and warm humanistic qualities of urban life merge with its stark, bold and often harsh realities.With artistic expertise, he captures the very heart of the commercial-industrial impact on city dwellers and environments in subtle sepia, honest black and white or playful, emotional and infinite gradations of color.

STEVE CANNON NAMED POET LAUREATE OF THE LOWER EAST SIDE HOWL! Arts Inc. is pleased to announce that Steve Cannon—Writer, Poet, Playwright, Teacher, and Sage—has been named 2014’s Poet Laureate of the Lower East Side (PLOTLES). Cannon will be featured at the signature Allen Ginsberg Poetry Reading that opens the HOWL! Festival onFriday, MAY 30. HOWL! Festival will take place in Tompkins Square Park Fri-Sun, May 30, 31 and June 1, 2014. Visit howlfestival.com. Cannon’s work and life is part and parcel of the neighborhood. Founder of A Gathering of the Tribes, the iconic East Village Gallery and Performance space, Cannon has been a local legend and East Village treasure for more than twenty years. Mentor and magnet to young poets and seasoned. Bards alike, his residence as salon has provided a nurturing forum for art exhibitions, poetry readings, musical events, and other activities which showcase the East Village’s cultural history, energy, and grit. For more on Steve’s remarkable life.

“Steve Cannon is the only admittedly blind gallery owner in New York City, as well as the only Paid Heckler in town,” says Dean of the Scene Bob Holman, founder/proprietor of the Bowery Poetry Club and board member of HOWL!. “When you walk into his gallery aka his living room, you know this is the secret portal to the real Art World—as open, creative, wild, and outside the establishment as it's been since the days of the Beat poets and Abstract Expressionist painters.”

But as the neighborhood changes, artists and creative spaces are being displaced by rising rents and gentrification. “This is a call to arms,” says Holman, as Mr. Cannon is being threatened with eviction from his residence and Tribes as an incubator of visual and performing artists may be shuttered. To help out, contact Tribes Here.

About Tribes

Tribes was conceived as a venue for underexposed artists, as well as a networking center and locus for the development of new talent. The formation of Tribes was motivated by the thriving artistic community in and around the Lower East Side: poetry at The Nuyorican Poets Café; performances and plays at the Living Theater; activist art at Bullet Space; as well as hundreds of artists trying to find and develop a voice in their medium and a place in which their work might be appreciated. Housed in a historic federal house built by the founder of The Nation magazine, (Hamilton Fish), Tribes is located on East 3rd Street between Avenues C and D.

About HOWL! Festival

Founded “to lionize, preserve, and advance the art, history, culture, and counterculture unique to the East Village and Lower East Side,” the HOWL! Festival is a call to arms across time and boundaries of culture, taste, and creative expression. Named the Village Voice’s Best Outdoor Festival, HOWL! Festival is the quintessential community event celebrating the history and creativity of the EV/LES. The spirit of Allen Ginsberg comes alive as more than 350 artists, poets, and performers, including youthful new talent, transform the Park into a participatory artwork infused with the creative energy, flamboyance, and panache that’s the hallmark of the neighborhood. A three-ring circus of wonderment and amusement, HOWL! Festival is entirely FREE. Signature Events include:

The Occupy Art Poetry event, which was held on Sunday, January 26, 2014, at The Bowery Poetry Club in New York City was a culmination of open-microphone performances, (which gave the event a sense of spontaneity) as well as scheduled readings. It was organized by Carla Cubit, whose Occupy Wall Street artwork also decorated the wall space behind the stage. There were many different performers; poetry and works of fiction were read aloud, and there were also slideshows and musical performances. The event was held from 8:30 to 10:30 pm and a small donation was taken at the door in lieu of a cover charge. The Emcee for the night’s festivities, Robert Galinsky, opened the show with a spoken-word piece of his own. His enthusiasm was extraordinary and contributed greatly to the pleasant and friendly energy in the room.

Jeffrey Chambers Wright, who will be celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of his publication, Cover Magazine this year, read two new pieces of poetry, one of which was inspired by his passion for preserving the public gardens of New York City’s Lower East Side. Leonard Abrams, publisher of The East Village Eye newspaper read from his new piece, “One Percent Bible.” Other performances included a comic-strip slideshow accompanied by a young woman serving as narrator, multiple musicians and drumming. The mantra of the occasion, if I may borrow a quote from one of the performers of the evening, was: “You don’t have to fuck people over to survive.”

The evening ended on a hopeful note: the pervasive idea being that the occupy movement cannot be a lost cause, and its supporters cannot lose and will not be futile in their efforts, because there are millions of us who are all in the same canoe. There was a piece entitled The Phoenix, which was especially memorable because its recitation was accompanied by a lovely musical piece played out on a conch shell. Tom Weiss, who runs the newspaper and blog Up Front News, did not recite a piece of poetry, but instead spoke about a subject that he is very passionate about, and that is the raising of awareness surrounding the unjust treatment and subsequent genocide of the people of Tibet.

Chris Flash was there to talk to the audience about his newspaper, The Shadow, which is New York City’s only underground newspaper. Their specialty, to use their own words, is “investigative journalism and in-depth reportage on important subjects that the mainstream media either under-reports, mis-reports and/or chooses to ignore.” It has been published on the Lower East Side of Manhattan since 1989, the catalyst for its birth being the distorted mainstream media coverage in the aftermath of the infamous police riot in Tompkins Square Park on the sixth and seventh days of August, 1988.

The show’s finale piece was a piano composition entitled “Occupy Love”, which was the title voted on by the audience members, and it was played very beautifully by Eric A. Dahl: it was a lovely and moving ending to an important evening of art and activism.

Over $1 trillion annually, worldwide military spending far exceeds anything else in our austerity era, including that of the UN peacekeeping budget (a fraction of the former at a mere $7.9 million). This depressing statistic can be found almost midway through the press release announcing the 53-piece exhibit, Women Call for Peace: Global Vistas, on view until Dec. 10, 2013, at the Anya and Andrew Shiva Gallery, John Jay College, CUNY*, 59th St. & 11th Ave., in Manhattan.

What does the U.S. -- which monopolizes almost half of the world's military market -- get for that exorbitant price?

For U.S. military women, the rate of rape triples to 70 rapes per day -- 3 rapes every hour. (The Pentagon also admits that women's suicide rate in the U.S. military triples as well.)

As bad as this scenario is, elsewhere in the world for women can be even worse. One of the most striking works of art in the exhibit -- "Little Red," by Marcia Annenberg -- highlights this reality, though one would have had to attend the artists' discussion to obtain the essential backstory inspired by the BBC website, and fully understand and feel the piece. It conveys the horrific story of 13-year-old Somalian Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow, who was raped on the way to visit her grandmother, and after it was reported to the police, arrested and stoned to death in a stadium for the crime of having pre-marital sex, because the fundamentalist Islamic group Al-Shabab controlled her town.

One of the two artists with the most political chops here, and not coincidentally the conceiver of this exhibit, is Faith Ringgold, founding member of both Where We At (the female contingent of the Black Arts Movement, which itself was the artistic branch of the Black Power movement), as well as the National Black Feminist Organization. She is a pioneer in the now-familiar art of flag-alteration, here, e.g., with "The Flag Is Bleeding, #2." Other quilters, including the only East Asian among the 16 artists and a rare late-bloomer who started her career at age 40, Flo Oy Wong, acknowledge Ringgold's importance (and actual helpfulness) as mother of the painted story quilt.

A counterpoint to Ringgold, who embraced the feminine domain of the quilt, is the coiner of "feminist art" and the conceiver of the first feminist art program in the country -- the formidable Judy Chicago, who deliberately trained herself in the more masculine domains of car and boat work, and pyrotechnics. Though none of that is on display here, some wonderfully organic drawings from her Birth Project series are. A more explicitly political work is a composite, juxtaposing the iconic photo of fleeing Vietnamese victims with a drawing of the American pilot attacking them with Napalm, aptly titled, "Grab the Joy Stick/Fire & Forget."

Another study, "Driving the World to Destruction," again pictures a male gloating while operating a steering wheel which frames the planet earth consumed in flames. If any art could ever be used in the argument against violent video games, found in over 2/3 of American households, these could. Follow the money trail, starting from pre-school where, "The average 4-8-year-old will see 250 war cartoons and 1000 ads for war toys per year"; nationally broadcast war cartoons increased almost 30-fold while war toy sales increased over 70% (from 1982 to 1985, when five of the top six toys sold in the U.S. were war toys, according to the National Coalition on Television Violence). Or follow the bullet trail in our shooting epidemic (not to mention our mass shootings epidemic, perpetrated by violent video game players) where over one American every hour is killed by a gun.

Aminah Robinson's "Bedouin Woman" portrait from her People of the Book series, which graces the promotional card for the exhibit, is represented concealed with the usual veil, but with a twist -- the veil is made from western male ties. These are the unwanted ties that bind women to a male-dominated, war-mongering world.

Indeed, the U.S. Dept. of Defense is the number-one polluter in the world, due to its "uninhibited use of fossil fuels, massive creation of greenhouse gases, and extensive release or radioactive and chemical contaminants into the air, water, and soil," according to Project Censored. The most explicitly ecological artist in this exhibit, Irene Hardwicke Olivieri makes the connection between peace and the environment in her celebratory portrait of Martin Luther King Jr. ("May We Keep Your Garden Alive") featuring, typical of her whimsical work, overlays of plants, animals, people, and text. Inspired by her exploration of the eco-friendly Parsi sky burials in India, even Bush and Cheney gratifyingly figure in "Nature's Cleanup Crew" as food for vultures.

Speaking of birds, some chickens are coming home to roost: even conservative NBC News noted that soldier suicides surpassed combat deaths in 2012 -- up to the rate of about one per hour, as Stop Soldier Suicide points out.

But to change any of these global, war-related problems we need more women and non-women, artists and non-artists, to call and do more than call -- for peace.

*Notes on recent militarism manifest at CUNY itself: Scores of CUNY professors have demanded the resignation of recently hired former CIA chief David Petraeus, as well as the dropping of charges against six students, punched and arrested by police during a peaceful protest against Petraeus in September. The students were charged with obstruction of governmental administration, riot, resisting arrest, and disorderly conduct. The Ad Hoc Committee Against the Militarization of CUNY, objects to Petraeus, "whose documented actions as Iraq/Afghanistan war commander and CIA chief include drone attacks upon civilians, and the creation of torture centers and death squads."

Also, in October, without any notice, the CUNY Administration raided and closed the Guillermo Morales-Assata Shakur Student & Community Center, which for almost two dozen years had provided social service programs and hosted student activist meetings at City College. Two student protestors who were arrested and suspended have been reinstated, but they continue to face criminal charges of rioting, criminal mischief, and harassment.

All that any critic can do is to articulate the chain of referents that occupy the mind as a result of a particular experience. Some pretend that this is a variation on cause and effect, the object observed being the cause and the critical subject, its effect. Such a position follows a host of assumptions that writers like me no longer subscribe to. While one may behold an object, that object hardly causes one's response to it. What's in the eye of the beholder is the sum of lived experience, a known quantity we call subjectivity. At the same time, the subjectivity of the object equally derives from its conception. Further, its "experience" incorporates the subjectivity of its creator. In this way, subjectivity is shared experience: this text intersects with subjectivities that share this moment, this event. Think of mythic characters, whose personae are wrapped as much in their own experiences as in their forbearers' — Minerva, goddess of wisdom, is born from Jupiter's head, Aphrodite, goddess of beauty is mother of Eros, god of love. Subjectivity is effectively a contemporary way of revisiting the mythic, essential approach of natural philosophers — think Socrates and Bacon, daVinci and Bruno, Galileo — who practiced before the modern Arts and Sciences schism gave us the specialist. This conflux of time and space expresses itself through a symbol set following the hidden laws that pertain to the light shed thereon: informed observation transforms viewer and viewed. As Marshall McLuhan pointed out: "electric light is pure information."

When I first encountered the sky room at PS1 in Queens about twenty years ago, I had no idea who had created this singular piece of art. Hell. I wasn’t really sure that it was an artwork. To my eyes, it resembled a beautiful accident. Incomprehensibly, a room void of the roof that should have completed it — an "empty ceiling" looming overhead — transported me directly into the presence of an intangible entity. Previously the sky existed outside the range of ordinary experience, hovering high above the space of our daily activities, the place wherein we draw each breath, the air between heaven and earth. Now, the same sky reached all the way down to the unseen rooftop and continued straight through it. This opening offered all who entered this "sky room" a fleeting — and entirely robust — taste of the infinite.

Knowing nothing of the person who had pondered and successfully calculated the means of lowering this intractable and nominally inaccessible expanse to a locus so tangible, I — and several of my art-influenced peers — assigned him the same art-pedigree as Gordon Matta-Clark. Both men sectioned architectures in ways that brought to mind Henri Lefebvre's thesis that there are no borders in space. What borders exist are imposed by economics, which perpetuates the lie of scarcity through delimitation, by naming and the assignment of values. By reconfiguring our experience of architecture, removing its limit, infinity now felt as if within one's reach (though, in fact, and of course, it was not)... Imponderable impossibilities became possible without taking any real shape; the very rectangular airway actively defied its quadrilateral. Well, it was hard to know what to think: apparently, a simple hole not only underscored the porous quality of its subjectivity — rendered diffuse — literally shot through the roof.

Predisposed to view the contents of PS1 according to its architectural descriptor (museum), my mind hung fast to the army of superlatives traditionally reserved for the proven ranks of storied painters. In particular, Turner came to mind, unbidden as painter while remembered for his studies in light. For months thereafter — maybe years — I told others about the experience, this strange, quasi-miraculous, occasional installation guaranteed to blow some corner of your mind (induce vertigo, or cause you to reflect on the color of the sky or force you to reassess the infinite or the tangibility of light or the confinement of infinite space)... It took a while to remember the guy's name, the man responsible for an oddity as technically simple as an hour of demolition work that precedes renovation. Only here, the renovation stopped at the demolition, highlighted it, framed it; this renewal added nothing new, instead renewed the available perspective that remained after the physical subtraction of a ubiquitous infrastructure, unveiled the sky as the hyper-connected superstructure that somehow anchors each rooftop to the imponderable regions above. Once out of the city, the sky unites us, the light gives us shape, and the name of James Turrell fit into my selective memory.

Turrell never struck me as an artist. Beyond art and science is the aesthetic realm the Greeks understood as an awakening—not aesthetics as a matter of taste, but as an instant of total consciousness, a moment in which light and being trump time and space to expose the holistic sensation of life itself, an integrated interstice that links all, the way valences exchange across organic chemistry, a doorway through which we apperceive the unspeakable. Having discovered his name, the PS1-moment could be recounted with certain authority. Unwittingly, I fell into the trap I feel most recently laid for me inside the doors of the Guggenheim and its sanctified offering of the natural philosopher’s eerily truncated creation.

The contemporary media is full of Turrell’s story of late. The New York Times magazine endeavored to publish an exhaustive profile of Turrell as artist on the eve of this three-venue, cross-country exhibition ("How James Turrell Knocked the Art World Off Its Feet," by Wyl S. Hylton, The New York Times Magazine, June 13, 2013). Nearly ten years ago, a friend and I stopped at Marfa on our own cross-country jaunt, where we inquired about access to the famed Roden Crater (as well as DeMaria's lightning fields), but no invite was extended. Here in NY, I ventured to the Guggenheim to gaze at Turrell's centerpiece. A site-specific intervention that embellishes Frank Lloyd Wright's Rotunda with LED lights. What strikes me is the absence of any sense of chance. The effort seems contrived, a set-up, a well-executed hoax to obfuscate the depth and breadth of what concerns him. It puts me in mind of David Hammons' "Concerto in Black and Blue" at Ace Gallery, when another young aspiring artist wondered if Hammons could "fill the space." With thumb-activated LEDs as the only light source, spectators were free to make of the darkened, cavernous and multi-chambered gallery space and their lights what they would—chance encounters, trysts, misdemeanors all went on in the gallery for the show's run, all enacted by the visitors. "Turrell's the guy who gave me the Prix de Rome," Hammons told me recently (The Prix De Rome for Sculpture, 1991, awarded by the American Academy of Rome). "I was so nervous, I squeezed my hands together under the table so no one could see me shake." He need shake no more.

Infusing his title with the name of Aten, ancient Egyptian representation of the solar deity, Turrell's "Aten Reign" feels like a top-down experience of light that vigorously compels the visitor to assume a submissive position reminiscent of the atmosphere of cathedrals across Western Europe during the height of tourist season. The glut of tourists when I attended—early on a Wednesday—may have had something to do with this, their eagerness to plan the next attraction ever-apparent, even as they furtively or boldly took photos destined for facebook (defying the guards’ imprecations to the contrary). Not that the piece seems more compelling than a slow animation through the half-dozen colors in a prismatic spectrum, each subjected to the Photoshop gradient scale. Not that there is an absence of technical expertise and precision. On the contrary, the work is clearly exacting.

Unfortunately, my visit took place during the week that one of the side exhibits was closed due to technical difficulties. That closure may account for why the line for the other work stretched out into the hall and around the screened-in balcony. Somehow, the few moments I attempted to queue up in the rear filled me with more dread and apprehensiveness than anticipation of the meditation the museum brochures herald with self-laudatory pride. Whoever has an interest in art cannot begrudge the institutional contribution to culture, but the canonization of Turrell was a representation of something far afield from the subjective realm of "Meeting" (the name of the permanent PS1 piece, from 1986). It seems the quiet Quaker has thrown his lot in with the pomp and pageant of exotic and remote imperial culture. A pharaoh and his followers — or even his elite opposition — may comfortably reclaim the spectacular view atop the ziggurat, but the mythopoeia eludes us here, and we experience the line above all. The tourists are put in mind of last night's line for the theater, of beating tonight's line for dinner, trade ill-timed punch lines from old jokes.

Raised in a Quaker milieu, Turrell talks about how his grandmother’s insistence that he close his eyes to witness the light within never made sense to him. Instead, he focused on the light around and between us. One can clearly go on forever about light – both religion and quantum physics maintain that all is but light, remind us that light unifies us from horizon to horizon and beyond, the way stars that may no longer exist shine on us from a distant past. In the end, Turrell’s subject matter – the light – reaches beyond his lifetime and ours, and concerns the immortal stuff that binds us as it promises to set us free. A man like Turrell is not constrained by the success or failure of source material that few bother to investigate. With lost loves and seventy years behind him, this is not the output of an artist, but the province of those once called natural philosophers, “cryptographers studiously deciphering the works of nature... in a post-Newtonian universe.” (From the editor’s “Notes” on “Eureka” by Edgar Allan Poe, collected in The Science Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe, Harold Beaver, editor, Penguin Classics, 1976)

Ron Kolm, whom for the purposes of this review I will think of as Kid Danté, is an artist whose canvas is the kind on which you go down for the count. But not this palooka.

He goes 32 rounds in this match with the poetic form, not counting graphic relief between rounds by ten gifted illustrators. The result is arnica for the soul. He delivers a nice combination of thrusts, jabs, uppercuts and sucker punches in this exhibition of the sweet science of the stanza. The bodily fluids fly but he never loses heart, whether he’s taking down Death, JFK or a can-opener wielding girlfriend. His cauliflower ear for the New York street, bedroom, tap or factory is as true as his bloodshot eye for the absurdity of his place and time. While he holds poetry up by the armpits from time to time, he takes no dive and neither filches nor ducks. The Void gives him the biggest jolt of any bout, and the women often have him on the ropes, but he comes out swinging every time, not with fancy footwork but steady; implacable — despite little birdies floating over his shoulders. I can only conclude that, as below, somebody up there likes him.

“Coming To Brooklyn,” an exhibition of the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists' CoalitionReviewed by Susan Scutti
Still photography more than any other art form is all about time. When we "take" a photograph, we essentially snatch a single moment, a single image from the infinite number of moments and images that eternally pass us by. In this way we redeem what is random and pronounce it worthy. Art, though, is an interpretation of the world and not simply a capturing of cascading reality. The artifice inherent in all great photographs, then, is the discovery of what is timeless in what is momentary. And so an exceptional photographer — and Eugene Hyon is exactly that — teaches us what is immutable about our world and ourselves.

Hyon's range of subjects is vast and he seamlessly moves back and forth between digital and film photography, yet no matter what subject he chooses or which method he selects, he creates with a painter's eye for composition. Each of his photos evidence the patience required to get things just right and his attention to craft and detail is what holds a viewer's attention. And although it takes mere seconds to lift a camera and press the shutter, Hyon's many years of making art and his wide-ranging knowledge of art history inform each momentary image. This timelessness is not only seen but more importantly felt by a viewer. Absolutely nothing he does is throwaway.

His work is currently exhibited in the show, “Coming to Brooklyn,” at the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists' Coalition, as well as on the website Artslant.com. A digital photograph "Baked Goods and Books" (July 2011) shows a storefront bakery within a yellow brick building which also boasts a sign advertising a Polish bookstore and "Garage Gallery." A 718 area code in the sign locates this building in Brooklyn and so one infers the neighborhood is Greenpoint, with primarily Polish residents. A huge hat painted beside the sign onto an area of whitewashed wall spills alphabetical letters, words, punctuation marks and phrases from its gaping brim. Significantly, the building stands behind a delicate wrought iron fence delicately painted white. What Hyon conveys in this elegant composition is diaspora as opposed to desperation; looking at this image a viewer senses the success and not just the struggle of American immigration.

In “Welcome to Greenpoint," July 2011, a painted mural occupies the left half of his photograph while three adults and a baby stroller walk out of the frame in the lower right hand corner. The mural, which is painted in green, blue, white, gray, black and red on a concrete block wall, appears to be a government commission; the banality of its message — “Welcome to Greenpoint BK” — suggests this most of all. Scrawled on top is the indecipherable tag of some local graffiti artist — an embellishment of perfect disrespect. Painted within the mural's block lettering is a separate image of a smiling, heroic-seeming man as well as a crowd of workers and the proportions of these figures are reminiscent of Eastern European propaganda during the years of the Cold War: the heroic, smiling man is twice the size of “the people.” He neatly echoes and subverts this idea within his photograph; the cluster of real, live people are also half the size of the heroic man, no different from the painted people except for the fact that they are walking away from their supposed leader. Thus, he subtly conveys a feeling of individuals who ignore and disobey what dwarfs them and so escape their historic past of oppression.

It seems appropriate that Hyon would choose digital photography for his urban fringe, but when documenting the natural world, he turns to film and achieves a more classical countenance. "Revival" (2010) and "Dancing at Night" (2005) are both black and white film photographs. The former is a lengthwise (11X14) close-up of leaves at the farthest edge of a branch weighted by snow; despite the starkness of this winter image, with its gray tones and icy whiteness, he impossibly conveys the promise of a Spring bloom. The second photo is an upper story view of city trees; dressed in white lights, they appear to be moving, essentially tangoing against a background of buildings, sidewalk, and street. Because the names of the stores are blurred in the photograph and cannot be read, he suggests that what is most significant and most soulful in the city is the natural world.

Stillness and elegance can be found within each of his images. The subjects and images which another, lesser artist might glibly sensationalize, he calmly observes until he finds a kernel of hope. More importantly, a viewer of his photographs never senses overweening intention or manipulated intervention; what is uplifting occurs simply and as a result of patient witness. And so the rigorous, spiritual beauty infused in each of his images prevents his photographs from becoming lost in the noise of the temporary and trivial.

ABOUT TRIBESA Gathering Of The Tribes is an arts and cultural organization dedicated to excellence in the arts from a diverse perspective. Founded originally as a print magazine by Steve Cannon in 1991 when he lost his eyesight to glaucoma, A Gathering of the Tribes operated for more than two decades, evolving into a place where artists could meet and exchange ideas. Read More